The Find My iPhone app sent users to the wrong house for more than a year

For the past year, a couple in Atlanta have been on the receiving
end of numerous angry visitors to their door demanding they hand
over their lost and stolen mobile phone.

For a mysterious reason, Find My iPhone apps are directing people
straight to the home of Christina Lee and Michael Saba and it is
causing confusion and chaos all around.

Since February 2015, the innocent couple have received knocks at
the door (in one month, it happened four times) from people
claiming they had tracked their lost iPhone to their location.

Some would come accompanied by police and some refused to believe
they were telling the truth.

On one occasion, the police arrived at their house searching for
a teenage girl whose parents reported her missing. The couple
were forced to wait outside for more than an hour while
authorities searched the inside of their home for the girl's
phone, and presumably the girl.

The bewildered couple fear one day someone dangerous or violent
might come knocking and things could escalate out of their
control.

So why is this happening?

Well, no one really knows. There does not appear to be any common
link to nail down a reason. Some phones will be Apple, some will
be Android – all on a number of different mobile carriers.
Despite contacting police about the issue that has gone well
beyond a comical misunderstanding, they have been unable to do
anything to help.

When mobile network providers, Apple and makers of Android
mobiles were contacted for an answer but have received nothing in
reply. The Federal Communications Commission, which are
regulators of wireless communication was also unable to provide
any constructive response.

Fusion reports
that the problem may lie in a flaw in mobile tower triangulation,
which phone-tracking apps utilise, according to a security
analyst. Others have pointed towards a fault in the couple's
Wi-Fi router or possibly a problem with the Wi-Fi mapping these
apps rely on.

"It's possible the apps all rely on the same Wi-Fi mapping data –
maybe all licensed from the same company – and that the company
could have had bad data in the database, either someone using the
same MAC address at a different location or just bad GPS data,"
Fusion reports.

The couple continue to be subject to callers convinced their lost
mobiles lie within their home having two incidents already since
2016, and without much light on resolving the issue they might
want to start using some find-me-a-new-home apps instead.